Seven Seconds in the Bronx

Judgments and impressions

If you put your hands over a babies hand a baby will looking into your eyes to see what you’re thinking most emotions can be read on your face

“41 Shots” Bruce Springsteen song references this incident

• Officers were found innocent
• Most mind reading is not black and white most are grey

Germany Laughs at US!

Get it us and U.S. lol

Germany is laughing at us because they think we are fixated on padding and softness. They think between our over padded car cushions to Mickey Mouses fat white hand glove were obviously obsessed haha

Gift of Expertise

Experts judge things differently because they are experts in that field.

Introspection destroyed people’s ability to solve insight problems. Studies show that making people think about Jam turns them into idiots!

In this case we trick our own minds making ourselves unable to explain the reasons behind why we dislike something.

Triangle Test (I want to try this on my friends)

1/3 out of 1,000 gets it right!

The triangle tests uses any 2 sodas and 3 cups. For example pour some Coke into two cups and then pour Pepsi into one cup. Ask the tester which cup is the odd one out.

If you do this test don't tell the tester anything about it before hand, separate them use 3 dark cups that are identical don't label with numbers or letters and when presenting the cups to them present it in a triangle shape.

Drinking a lot of cola and thinking about cola is very different!

Music is no longer about faith anymore. Market research doesn’t take experts opinions about music anymore - they take the average music listener.

Coke and Pepsi Challenges

The real trick!

During a taste test people preferred Pepsi over Coke because Pepsi has a sweeter taste. Coke drinkers couldn't believe they liked Pepsi more however, no one ever drinks just a sip of soda. When one sip is tasted yes Pepsi is preferred - when the whole can is drank more people prefer Coke because its not so sweet. (This of course was never brought to anyone's attention!)

Don't let your eyes fool you!

Studies show that different packaging make people “think” the food inside tastes different.

When sprite cans were created with more yellow on them people honesty “thought” they tasted more lemon. When the sprite cans were created with more green on them people honesty "thought" they tasted more lime. Sprite never change the soda formula just the coloring on the Sprint cans.

Cook County Hospital

The hospital still has the heart attack decision tree on the wall because of its powerful 95% accuracy rate

A group of psychologist were asked to consider the case of a 29 year old war veteran, Joseph Kid. They were given basic information and then asked to answer questions regarding his childhood. After they were given more information on Kid's life and were allowed to change their answers if necessary.

It was determined that when the psychologies knew less information about Joseph Kid they were able to answer more questions correctly!

Music referenced in the book

Kenny Rogers “Gambler”

U2 “Joshua Tree”

Kena “Free Time”

Verbal Overshadowing

The left side of your brain deals with words while the right side deals with pictures

When asked to pick someone out of a line up you most likely can – this uses the right side of your brain, however once your asked to write down a description of that person your thought process has to move to the left side of your brain idea is distorted

Several people were asked a series of puzzles. When those people were asked to explain themselves 30% fewer puzzles were solved!

The act of taking something apart makes you lose the meaning

Insight is like a flickering candle that can easily go out

Fight the Warren Harding Errors!

President Warren G. Harding, (29^th President) moved up in the ranks based on his looks! He is thought of (by most) the worse President we have had up to this point.

Male CEO’s were a shade under 6ft. CEO’s as a group are 3 inches taller. Average male is 5’9 a third are 6’2

Unconscious biases – "Warren Harding Error" being a short male is the same as minority statistics. A inch of height is worth $789/year
People don’t know they are doing the "Warren Harding Error" but they are!! FIGHT IT

Priming Experiment

 Put your mind in a "smart zone" before you take a test. Write down things like what it would mean to be a professor.

Studies show that students whom were asked about their race before an exam did worse or better (black vs. white) We didn’t know that this had such an effect!

Studies show that people who were primed with polite comments acted polite vs. people who were primed with rude comments acted rude. Both groups were unaware that their behavior had been affected.

Gladwell believes this "free will" is actually an auto-pilot being affected by our outside environment more than we know...

If your aware of the fact that your being primed it won’t work!

All of these experiments must be approved by a board because they affect the behavior of the person being studied so much

Damage in the ventralmena area causes a disconnect between what you know and what you do (autism) This idea is similar to drug addiction. Addicts know very well the consequences of their behavior but they fail to act accordingly its because of a brain problem.

Doctors - - the good and the bad

More and more Doctors are being sued based on the single fact of how they display their care for their patients.

By reviewing the tone of a conversation between a Doctor and their patient Gladwell can tell if they are sued more than average. Doctors seem to be sued less if they give you an agenda up front, act concerned and listen.

We have a hard time excepting snap judgments because often the person doesn't have a good explanation their judgment - they say something like, I just know or I can feel it. We should except each other’s snap judgments more often.

the BIG five

BIG 5 Inventory

1.    Extroverted

2.    Agreeableness

3.    Consciousness

4.    Emotional Stability

5.    Openness

Friends can identify you quite well

Experiment: random students went into random dorm rooms and answered a series of questions in regards to the 5 factors above about the student. Friends of the students did better on extroverted (1) and agreeableness (2) however strangers did better on consciousness (3), emotional stability (4), and openness (5) which is more than 50%.

This shows how well the BIG 5 works on determining personality

It is possible for someone who has never met us and only looked at our room for 20 minutes to come to a better conclusion than someone who has know us for years

Many people think they are more negative or more forthcoming than they actually act

Love Lab - John Gottmen

Love Lab

-     With one hour of analysis Gottmen can tell with a 95% accuracy if  a couple can will still be married in 15 years

-     With 15mins he has a 90% success rate

-     Gottmen reviews tapes and uses an equation to come to his conclusions. This would be conscious decision making

Thin Slicing: make decisions on a thin slice of knowledge. Rapid Cognition. This type is an example automated unconscious thinking. Thin slicing is what Gottmen does with a machine.

When couples argue and one says, “you have to admit, I’m getting better” In happier marriages the partner will acknowledge that they are getting better but in unhappier marriages they don’t support the fact that their partner is getting better

Measuring positive to negative emotion needs to be 5 to 1

Looking for a part tern easy to see which a couple describes how they met

§  The 4 Horsemen

1.  Defensiveness

2.  Stonewalling – more often men

3.  Criticism – more often women

4.  Contempt – most important of them all one or both partners showing this is the worse

Contempt: any statement made from a higher level. Trying to put the person on a lower level than themselves. For example, "your scum, you're a bitch" it's hierarchy, no gender difference

To me this sounds like common sense, if you partner is calling you scum and a bitch all the time then I would assume NO your marriage is not going to work out. Gladwell uses simple examples to make his points better understood, however he also goes into greater depth to show the complexity marriage would last, why would divorce rate be so high!

Introduction to Blink

A group of students were shown a silent video of a teacher and within 2 seconds came up with the same conclusion as students who had the teacher all semester!

Quality of a decision, we think we need as much information as possible however, our snap judgments and first impressions can offer a much better means of making sense of the world

§  Gladwell’s Task

1.   Convince you that decisions made very quickly can be every bit as good as decisions made conscious and deliberate

2.   Know when we should trust out instincts and when we should be weary of them

3.   Convince you that our snap judgments and first impressions can be educated and controlled

There can be enough knowledge in the blink of an eye, as there is in a month of rational analysis

Gladwell believes everything would be different the way we fight wars, the movies made, police officers are trained and so on

The posts that I will be posting are based on Malcolm Gladwell's studies - I am only summarizing the points I find interesting.

BLINK: New book

The next book I'm reading is Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell

§  Fast and Frugal – Iowa Experiment

-     10 cards your body sends stress responses but you are not consciously aware of it

-     50 cards you have a hunch

-     80 cards you know what’s up

-     Your body knows whats going on 70 cards before you know!

§  2 ways of making a decision

-     Conscience: think about what you have learned and know and make a decision

-     Fast and Frugal: under conscience state before any conscience thought takes place you don’t know why you know but you do

Adaptive Unconscious: (different from Sigmund Freud’s conscious) This is what warns you if you’re in danger. For example when your body warns you that you are about to be hit a car and you jump out of the way this is your adaptive unconscious helping you outThe Getty was so excited to get a Corouse that they believed it was real, they thought it had to be! Several others that trusted their unconscious knew it was fake within seconds. Goodreads (additional reviews)

The Movie

In the movie they show Salander as a little girl burning a man to death. I like this is foreshadowing what is to come in book number 2, The Girl Who Played With Fire.

you can’t choose who you LOVE

At the end of this book Salander realizes she’s in love with Blomkvist and goes over to tell him when she sees him with Erika. She becomes very upset and throws away the flowers she had for him and goes home. This part breaks my heart because Salander is such a closed person. She steps out of her comfort zone and tries to reach out to Blomkvist, only to be scared off by the reality of things.

I am aware that this is a book but I can’t help but relate it to reality. If only she went to tell Blomkvist at a different time when he wasn’t with Erika, if only she was a minute sooner or a minute later things might have been different.

In life I am always thinking about WHAT IF… what if you didn’t call so and so, what if you went on that trip or what if you had stayed home. What if your future spouse drives past you everyday to work, what if you had the courage to tell that person you love them. Would things be different? Is our destiny already written or does each little thing we do change the outcome of our future?

Blomkvist is set up!

So the truth comes out. Blomkvist is set up by Wennerstrom. All his data and facts turn out to be fake and his sources disappear! This is when Blomkvist decides to get Wennerstrom back. With Salander’s help they find out everything about his shady business.

Explanations & Thoughts

I looked up Anon because that is a word I have never heard before. It means soon or shortly, for example, I will see you anon.

Dahlamn is starting to sound shady. He works at Millennium but no one really trusts him or likes him. Could he be working for Wennerstrom?

The last line in chapter 20 explains the title of the book.

The cat was murdered!!! OMG NOW I’M MAD!

I really like the name Mikael. I like saying it and I like the way it sounds.

Salander’s T-Shirts

Larsson is always describing Salander’s t-shirt, which I found to be interesting and somewhat funny. One of them says, “Armageddon was yesterday, today we have a problem.” I was curious if these were real shirts. I’m not sure if they were made before or after the book but if you Google the sayings you can buy the shirt.

Salander is ALWAYS eating Billy’s Pan Pizza… I want to try one lol.

Chapter 16

In this chapter we learn about Gottfried's cabin out in the middle of nowhere! however Larsson does make it sound really pretty and peaceful. We also discover that this is the place where Harriet's father drowned.

Who is Herald: Cecilia's father and Vanger's brother.

I have been wondering if the dates at the beginning of each chapter is something we should be following?

For those of you who don't know I recently rented this book on tape allowing me to listen to it during the day and while reading it at night. This book can be rather confusing and if you don't read it religiously every day, you may start to forget things. Having this book on tape, allows me to move faster through the book plus, Simon Vance reads the book wonderfully. He deepens his voice for the male parts and changes his voice for the women. Another plus to this is that I am now able to pronounce the character's names correctly! Simon Vance has made this book more enjoyable and I can only hope he read the next two books as well.

Thoughts

When I started reading The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, I like Salander the best, her personality, the way she carried herself, the way she didn’t care about being misunderstood and the fact that she knew exactly who she was. Now that I’m about half way through the book, I am feeling more connected with Erika and Cecilia. I like Erika and Blomkvist’s relationship, the openness and understanding of it. Now, in my life, I think I would like to have a relationship similar to this - have my husband and lover, however I am also aware of the fact that this type of relationship is not well accepted here in the U.S. and my opinion will most likely change as I grow older. I also know it’s easier to be the one with the lover rather than the partner who must be excepting of their partners behaviors.

I enjoy Salander’s traits, with Erika’s way of living, with Cecilia’s frame of mind. Why is one person loving you not enough. I can understand if your partner is not around, you might possibly start looking to fill that void, but to leave your husband occasionally to be with your lover sounds selfish. Don’t get me wrong, I like the idea of it as I said before, I don’t believe anyone should have to sacrifice their love for another person. I don’t think it should be wrong to enjoy life with as many people as you possibly can as long as it’s well communicated. Still I can’t help but wonder why as humans, does it feel like one person loving us is not enough. I guess it’s human nature to always want more or want whatever it is you can’t have. This is the best way I can explain it for now. I don’t think this is what Larsson intend me to go on about in depth so…let’s get back to the book!

Chapter 14

Summary

Vanger owns part of Millennium now and Blomkvist is writing his bio while searching for Harriet's killer. The book explains that if Vanger and Blomkvist were to become enemies, Vanger owns such a large portion of Millennium that he could easily destroy it!

Lawyer, Frode hires Salander to investigate Blomkvist which is the start of them becoming close.

Wennerstrom started his career with the Vanger Corporation. We don't know why Vanger doesn't like Wennerstrom yet, but we can assume something bad happened between them. Salander takes it upon herself to investigate this as well.

Blomkvist ends up only spending 2 months in jail and Vanger says he will explain why he dislikes Wennerstrom at the end of the year.

Chapter 11

Prepare yourself for the chapter it's very graphic!

In this chapter Nils says, "this is better than a whore. She gets paid with her own money." or does he say this in his head, either way it sent me over the roof! This quote will stick with me for awhile.

It's frustrating to me that Lizbeth needs guardianship even though she is over 18 years of age. The book also states that 4,000 people in Sweden are under guardianship. I wonder how many are woman.

I forgot who Harald Vanger was when I was reading about him in this chapter, so in case you did too he’s the father of Birger and Cecilia.

Chapter 10

I LOVE CATS! I think it's so cute how the cat spends time at everyones house. I currently live with a cat, Jasper, who sleeps on everyones bed. He usually sleeps with his owner but from time to time he will comfort Gwen and I by sleep on our beds, what we call as him giving us our present.

Some things I noticed is that Nils is getting really weird, and book goes into great detail about the hardware of Lizbeth's laptop. This was a little too much for me seeing as I don't think it added anything to the book by describing all the in's and outs of her macbook. I did however just purchase a macbook but still, it's an overkill.

Chapter 9

Near the end of chapter 9, Vanger explains why HIS brother hates him so much. We find out it's because he married a Jewish woman BUT isn't that woman his brothers daughter?! Is his brother Herald or are they talking about Lowbeck?

I found it interesting how Harriet's grandfather, father and then herself all had shady deaths. So far I don't see a connection because the deaths. It's also peculiar how no one in the family has divorced or remarried after becoming widowed. Martin has never marriend. Will these be main points in Harriet's disappearance?

Abuse Rate of Women in Sweden!

"Eighteen percent of women in Sweden have at one time been threatened by a man."

"Forty-six percent of the women in Sweden have been subjected to violence by a man."

"Thirteen percent of the women in Sweden have been subjected to aggravated sexual assault outside of a sexual relationship."

"Ninety-two percent of women in Sweden who have been subjected to sexual assault have not reported the most recent violent incident to the police."

Larsson does a great job in getting the reader’s attention with these stunning percentages. I'm curious in knowing if these percentages are accurate, between what years they were taken, and how the U.S. comes out in comparison. As human beings and especially as a woman myself, I take this to heart. I think we need to do more to make women feel like if they report an incident it will be taken seriously. I remember hearing on the news a while back that L.A. County had a backlog of about 5,000 rape kits that had never been sent out for testing because of budget cuts. To suffer through an assault, report it and have your body poked at all over again, just to find out that it was put away in a box never to be tested is unacceptable! Abuse and assault of any kind should not be tolerated and until we take it seriously we will all suffer the consequences.

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (intro cont.)

Who is who?! There are way too many characters and the fact that Larsson uses first names and last names interchangeable doesn’t help. I think for me, because the names are Swedish, I’m having trouble keeping track. I have included a character list below along with the major themes for this book. I hope this helps! You can read more at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_with_the_Dragon_Tattoo

CHARACTERS

·         Mikael Blomkvist, journalist, publisher of Millennium magazine, and amateur sleuth. Early in his career, he was compared to Astrid Lindgren's fictional boy detective Kalle Blomkvist (in the English translation, Bill Bergson), and the nickname stuck.

·         Lisbeth Salander, antisocial but extremely intelligent hacker and researcher, specialising in investigating people. She has a photographic memory, and is believed by Blomkvist to have Asperger syndrome. She has been compared to Pippi Longstocking,^[4] and a colleague has stated that Larsson conceived Salander partly as a "grown up Pippi Longstocking".^[5]

·         Henrik Vanger, retired industrialist and former CEO of Vanger Corporation.

·         Hans-Erik Wennerström, corrupt Swedish industrialist and Blomkvist's nemesis.

·         Gottfried Vanger, father of Harriet and Martin. An abusive alcoholic with neo-Nazi sympathies.

·         Harriet Vanger, Henrik's great-niece (usually referred to as his niece) who vanished 40 years ago.

·         Martin Vanger, brother of Harriet and President of the Vanger Corporation.

·         Holger Palmgren, lawyer, and earlier guardian of Lisbeth Salander.

·         Nils Bjurman, corrupt lawyer and guardian of Lisbeth Salander after taking over from Palmgren.

·         Cecilia Vanger, daughter of Harald Vanger, and one of Henrik's nieces.

·         Erika Berger, editor of Millennium, friend and occasional lover of Blomkvist.

·         Dirch Frode, lawyer for Vanger Corporation, and main friend and assistant to Henrik Vanger.

·         Dragan Armansky, director of Milton Security, Salander's boss and quasi-father figure.

·         Christer Malm, Art director and designer of Millennium. Also part owner of the magazine together with Berger and Blomkvist.

·         Gustaf Morell, Retired Detective superintendent (inspector while investigating Harriet’s disappearance).

·         Isabella Vanger, Harriet and Martin Vanger's mother and wife of the late Gottfried Vanger.

MAJOR THEMS
“Larsson makes several literary references to the genre's classic forerunners, and comments on contemporary Swedish society. Reviewer Dessaix writes that "His favorite targets are violence against women, the incompetence and cowardice of investigative journalists, the moral bankruptcy of big capital and the virulent strain of Nazism still festering away ..." in Swedish society.
Larsson further enters the debate as to how responsible criminals are for their crimes and how much is blamed on upbringing or society.  Salander has a strong will and assumes that everyone else does, too. She is portrayed as having suffered every kind of abuse in her young life, including sexual assault and time in a psychiatric clinic. Since she holds others responsible for their actions, she takes revenge on those who abuse others.”

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (Book 1: Millennium) by Stieg Larsson

The Swedish title for this book is Men Who Hate Women. I found some interesting facts regarding the author before I set out to read his Millennium trilogy. Below I have cut and pasted a few fun facts, you can read more at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stieg_Larsson

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
“Karl Stig-Erland Larsson (15 August 1954 – 9 November 2004), who wrote professionally as Stieg Larsson, was a Swedish journalist and writer, born in Skelleftehamn outside Skellefteå. He was the second best-selling author in the world in 2008, behind Khaled Hosseini.”

NAME CHANGE
“Larsson's first name originally was Stig which is the standard spelling. In his early twenties, he changed it to avoid confusion with his friend Stig Larsson, who would go on to become a well-known author well before Stieg did. At the time, they were amateur photographers and it was in this capacity that they wished to prevent any misunderstanding; neither had yet published a book. Stieg Larsson, in later years, would tell the story that the two men had tossed a coin to decide who was to change his name, but this is disputed by Stig Larsson. The pronunciation is the same regardless of spelling.”

THE NOVELS
“At his death, Larsson left behind manuscripts of three completed but unpublished novels in a series. He wrote them for his own pleasure after returning home from his job in the evening, making no attempt to get them published until shortly before his death. Larsson left about three quarters of a fourth novel on a notebook computer, now possessed by his partner, Eva Gabrielsson; synopses or manuscripts of the fifth and sixth in the series, which he intended to contain an eventual total of ten books, may also exist.”

DEATH AND AFTERMATH
“Larsson died in Stockholm at the age of 50 of a heart attack. There were rumors that his death was in some way induced, because of death threats received as editor of Expo, but these have been denied by Eva Gedin, his Swedish publisher.”

INFLUENCES
“When Larsson was 15 years old he witnessed the gang rape of a girl, which led to his lifelong abhorrence of violence and abuse against women. The author never forgave himself for failing to help the girl, whose name was Lisbeth - like the young heroine of his books, who is also a rape victim. This inspired the themes of sexual violence against women in his books.” Goodreads (additional reviews)